TMC to raise the issue of economic blockade in Parliament: Roy
Imphal: The ongoing economic blockade in Manipur and demonetisation have dealt a dual blow to the traders dealing with poll materials with orders and delivery badly hit due to dearth of raw materials.
“Every time during the elections, we bring in lot of raw materials for making poll materials but this time we could not do it firstly due to the blockade and secondly due to demonetisation we were short of cash initially so we could not buy poll materials,” a trader dealing with poll material said in Imphal.
“Not only political parties wait for the poll season, but also traders dealing with campaign material eagerly wait for elections as its a boom time for them.
But demonetisation and dearth of raw materials due to the ongoing economic blockade have affected the traders who are in the business of campaign materials”, a trader said.
Campaign materials like posters, flex, paper posters, flags, printed with party symbols have been top draws among the parties during the previous elections but this time both the orders and the delivery have been badly hit due to demonetisation and blockade.
With the scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes due to demonetisation, traders who faced shortage of new notes subsequently could not pay wages to the labourers who made those materails.
“The blockade started from November 1 but after the effect of demonetisation became quite normal in January, we could not get the raw materials due to the blockade,” Melam, a trader, said.
Cutting across political lines, parties have also squeezed poll spending in this election following economic blockade and strict supervision of Election Commission.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress on Saturday said it would raise in Parliament the issue of ongoing economic blockade in Manipur and already urged the Election Commission to take action to lift the blockade.
“We would raise the issue of economic blockade in Parliament. We are against any kind of blockade or shutdown. Recently I had met Election Commission and told them that they were required to act in order to lift the blockade as the model code of conduct is in force in the state,” Roy told PTI.
Roy, who is presently in Imphal to campaign for TMC candidates contesting in Manipur elections, said that TMC would play a decisive role after the polls as “no party will be able to get majority on its own.”
“We are in a position to win at least seven to eight seats. We won seven seats in 2012 Manipur Elections. And in the post poll scenario we’ll play a decisive factor as no party will be able to get majority on its own,” Roy said.
TMC this time is fighting for 24 seats. Last time with seven seats TMC was the main opposition party in the state. Later, however, all the seven MLAs switched their loyalty to eiher Congress or BJP.
TMC leader in Manipur Samrat Tapadar accused both the BJP and the Congress of playing politics on the issue of blockade and said “both the parties are only interested in votes by exploiting the sufferings of the common people.” (PTI)